Britain at CERN

14 November, 2000

Geneva, 14 November 2000. From 14 to 17 November 30 British companies will exhibit leading edge technologies at CERN1. This is Britain's 18th exhibition at CERN since 1968. Out of the 30 companies, which attended the Britain at CERN exhibition in 1998, 25 have received an order or a contract relating to CERN during the last two years.

The exhibition was inaugurated on Tuesday by Sir David Wright, Chief Executive of British Trade International. He was accompanied by H.E. Mr Christopher Hulse CMG, OBE, Her Majesty's Ambassador to Switzerland, and Mr. David Roberts, Deputy Head of Mission and Director of Trade Promotion at the British Embassy in Bern. CERN Director-General, Professor Luciano Maiani, underlined the major contribution of British physicists to CERN, pointing out the fact that several of CERN's accelerators have been and still are constructed under the leadership of British engineers.

The main subjects of the exhibition are cryogenics and vacuum technologies, gas detection, power supplies, welding, precision-machined mechanical components, special metals, electronics, control and communication cables, and particle detectors. After the shutdown of the LEP accelerator, CERN is now focusing on the LHC, a new particle collider, which requires sophisticated technology and is scheduled to start running in 2005. The start of this new venture is a good opportunity for British companies to show that their hi-tech products comply with CERN's objectives and criteria, and bid for CERN tenders.

British physicists have always played an important role at CERN. UK was one of the founding members of the laboratory back in 1953. At present there are around 300 British physicists preparing the LHC. Dr. Lyn Evans leads the construction of this new accelerator. Another Briton at CERN - Tim Berners Lee - invented the World Wide Web in 1989. Britain is the third largest service provider for CERN after France and Switzerland. This exhibition shows that the country has a lot to offer on the scientific and technical side as well.

The industrial exhibition will be accompanied by seven lectures held on Wednesday 15 November:

1.CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.